That Johnny Mnemonic review

So a review of the 1995 Keanu Reeves film, Johnny Mnemonic, was promised previously on Cold Emphasis.  While at the time it was promised, I had recently viewed the film, by now, it is far from fresh in my memory now, so a proper review is not forthcoming.  (If you want that, here is a classic from videogum (also, Videogum, RIP, apparently. That blows.), or for the slightly more serious cinephiles, Roger Ebert has taken the time to have a good laugh at the film himself:

one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn't deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it

He gives it two whole stars, and a review which you may think is pretty bad, until you read  his review for Masterminds.)

I think the quote I pulled from his review just about sums the film up: idiotic grandeur is right!  This film, more than any other Keanu Reeves film (except for possibly the last Matrix movie) cannot be watched without irony (and maybe a bit of pity for Dolph Lundgren, who's career arc took a sharp turn after this one).  What I love about Keanu is that this film did not seem to derail his career at all.  Sure, maybe if hadn't done this he would have been cast in Titanic and become what DiCaprio is now, but he survived Johnny Mnemonic and would become even bigger with the Matrix a few years later.  It certainly seemed to end the directing career of Robert Longo and it should have ended Henry Rollins'.

I recall it being a pretty tough movie to get through, as the absurdity of the production design and Keanu's full commitment to the genre can't quite make up for the writing, and the trio of Lundgren, Rollins and Ice-T doing a lot of bad over-acting.

If this film had been made by the Wachowskis (and re-written, or made without dialogue) I could see it being good, as the source material, by William Gibson, is pretty great.

A must-see, but only for Keanu-completists, Henry Rollins-completists, and those nostalgic for the idea of a cyberpunk future we are decidedly not living in now.

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Kurt and Courtney

Kurt Cobain died seventeen years ago today.

I highly recommend Nick Broomfield's documentary film on the subject of his death, titled "Kurt and Courtney". I won't go into details of the film, except to say that I think it is a brilliant film in so many ways. I have to say that I agree with Broomfield's conclusion of the events: there was definitely something fishy in the circumstances surrounding his death, but everybody who has anything of substance to say on the matter is completely and totally unreliable (sometimes hilariously unreliable, and other times depressingly so). Throughout it all, the presence of the unflappable Broomfield really gives the film a deadpan comic edge amid some ultimately depressing subject matter.

Also, Gus van Sant's 2005 film, Last Days, while certainly not any kind of biopic, is nevertheless great, and makes you think of Kurt Cobain.

More Kurosawa

Fortunately, I have begun to utilize Netflix instant streaming for something more substantial than watching reruns of the Office or bad mid-90s sci-fi (Johnny Mnemonic excluded, of course - review to come). Basically, Netflix feeds me all of the Kurosawa I can digest at the moment, and the latest was "Ikiru", a really nice piece about an elderly bureaucrat (the always-awesome Takashi Shimura) who discovers, after having wasted 25 years of his life in the department of public affairs, that he has stomach cancer and 6 months to live. He swings wildly from depression to benders to taking a young co-worker on dates and all the while his co-workers speculate as to what has gotten into him (he doesn't tell anyone he has cancer - not his co-workers, not his son).

The film makes a really nice turn when Watanabe dies and the last hour of the film alternates between his wake and flashbacks via his co-workers' memories of the last 5 months of his life, when he endeavored tirelessly to have a small playground built on the site of a cesspool in the middle of the city. As in 'High and Low', the question of values and morals looms large, and like in that film, it is difficult to ascertain just how ironic or subversive Kurosawa is trying to be with his story. Watanabe is seen ultimately as rebelling against the bureaucracy, but he does not cast off the shackles and rage against the machine, so to speak; instead, he submits himself fully to the bureaucracy, debasing himself to the various officials, politicians, even 'peons' as one wake-attendee notes - all in the service of creating this little park before he dies. It is an open question as to whether this is to be seen as truly heroic, or as ironically heroic. Is it absurdity that heroism is to consist of successfully navigating bureaucracies? Or is Kurosawa really identifying modern virtue in this manner? This may simply be a cultural divide between Japanses and American culture, but I feel that this kind of sentiment pervades most of Kurosawa's films, even those set in feudal times. A sense of absurdity certainly pervades the wake by its end, once the attendees are noticeably drunk: the younger workers vow to take on the bureaucracy and make it more efficient, doing so with the fervor of revolutionaries and urging one another, "don't forget this feeling!"

Strahov Library Panorama

Apparently Jeffrey Martin at 360cities has created the largest indoor photograph, which is a QTVR/pano taken from the center of the Philosophical Hall in the Strahov Monastery Library in Prague. While its boring to get caught up in a pissing contest over gigapixels and gigabytes (though sadly typical in the photo world), what is more interesting is the library itself, which recently underwent a massive renovation:

“After a thorough preparation, the library was dismantled, first the parquets, which were documented piece by piece. Photographs and old book covers were found under the floor, which had been put there to prevent the floor from creaking. After that the wooden bookshelves were worked upon, most of them were renovated right on the spot,” said Mr. Šidlovský. Then the scaffolding was put up for the restorers, Karine Artouni and Alena Krahulíková, who removed all the unnecessary repaintings and past interventions from the magnificent fresco Spiritual Development of Humanity.

The same type of work was carried out with the wood, the old layers of varnish had to be removed and a new one had to be put on following the classical recipes. The wood also had to be strengthened, as parts of it were eaten by woodworms. Only a few ornaments were added,” said Mr. Šidlovský.

Technically, Martin's image it is almost 3,000 photographs stitched together, not one, however. At first, the number of images seemed unreasonable, but this is the result of such meticulousness:

Martin’s panorama lets you examine the spines of the works in the Philosophical Hall’s 42,000 volumes, part of the monastery’s stunning collection of just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century — more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time.

Its pretty amazing that you can zoom in a read what's on the spines here, especially since, for the most part, the public is not granted access to this room.

As an aside though, I couldn't resist including the part about "the sum total of human knowledge at the time". Its tricky business when you start equating books with human knowledge.

Double feature: Seven Samurai and High and Low

I have seen both of these films before, but had forgotten how good they were. They both, of course, feature Toshiro Mifune, but he plays nearly opposite character types. His samurai is recognizable from his turns in 'Yojimbo' and 'Sanjuro' though somewhat drunker/more reckless; but his wealthy shoe executive is more a study of cold rage transforming into ultimate bewilderment coupled with modern alienation. I had forgotten how his character basically disappears throughout much of the third act (except for the brief moment when the detectives come to his house and see him mowing his lawn and sweating through his dress shirt) until the final scene in which he visits the kidnapper/murderer in prison.

Both films are interesting studies on class, dignity, and (even in Seven Samurai, surprisingly) the shifting ground of morality in the modern age. Both films ultimately turn on questions of what should be valued in a culture, and how that value is redeemed. In Seven Samurai, the 'old man' chides Manzo for worrying about protecting his daughter's honor from the samurai, saying "your head is on the chopping block, and all you care about are the whiskers on your face". The end, too, reveals the ambiguity of values like honor and sacrifice, when Shimada, turning from the singing peasants planting their rice fields, looks upon the graves of the fallen samurai and says, "So. Again we are defeated. Victory belongs to the peasants, not to us."

They are both on Netflix instant. I didn't plan on watching them both together, but after Seven Samurai, I couldn't resist more Kurosawa and more Mifune.

Finally, an excuse for my terribly slow typing rate

Apparently there is a whole 'nother kind of keyboard layout out there. Unfortunately, I just got a new computer and got it with the usual QWERTY layout. I can't say I've ever seen the Dvorak layout in action, but according to wikipedia (though more accurately in this case, probably pro-Dvorak wiki-propaganda) it is more efficient and causes less hand strain and awkward keystroke combinations.

The Cloud

Finally, a big company has gotten their act together and created a cloud service for music and videos. The concern, I suppose, is over licensing and copyright issues, but Amazon doesn't seem to be concerned about this:

"Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music. It's like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available."

A number of commenters have pointed out that several companies (mp3.com) tried this several years ago and were stopped in the courts. Amazon's strategy seems to be, "we're Amazon. We sell a lot of your shit, and this cloud will help us sell even more, so you'd better get on board before you miss out on your profits."

Ecstatic Music Festival

My good friend, Steve Taylor, has been producing some short documentary videos for the Ecstatic Music Festival that is currently in full swing at Merkin Hall in New York.

Ecstatic Music Festival: Sarah Kirkland Snider, Shara Worden & yMusic from Kaufman Center on Vimeo.

Ecstatic Music Festival - Roomful of Teeth and tUnE-yArDs from Kaufman Center on Vimeo.

Ecstatic Music Festival: Dan Deacon & So Percussion from Kaufman Center on Vimeo.

Ecstatic Music Festival TRAILER from steve taylor on Vimeo.

Sesame Street and Philip Glass

The New Political Correctness?

I've always thought that people complaining about 'political correctness' over the past 20 years or so was pretty lame, and mostly just reflected the fact that they wanted to continue to tell jokes about women, minorities, gay people, and handicapped people with impunity.

So now I see that we're starting to come full circle: in the right-wing version of 'P.C.', one is not allowed to reflect upon history or culture, except to point out that "we're all just individuals". I know that this idea has a long history, of course, but seeing the following just made it click in my brain:

Adding insult to injury, the Arizona legislature passed a bill yesterday outlawing ethnic studies programs:

HB 2281 would make it illegal for a school district to have any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity “instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

It also would ban classes that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”

The measure is directed at the Tuscon Unified School District’s popular Mexican-American studies department, which school officials say provides only “historical information” — not “ethnic chauvanism” as the state school superintendent has alleged. One state lawmaker tried to show how ridiculous the legislation is by proposing that schools be barred from teaching about 9/11 because it would result in hatred toward Arab-Americans; the measure failed.

Happy Anniversary Youtube

Apparently, there was no youtube five years ago. Is this really true? Could we watch video online before youtube? Its hard to imagine.

Here is the first youtube video ever; its no Lumiere, but it has a similar spirit to what the Lumiere Brothers were up to over 100 years ago:

140 characters is just right sometimes

"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty," - Bill Maher.

Culture as Information made Visual by Line Graphs

That may be the title of my next thesis. I have been pondering the intersections of history, perception, information, visual culture, and the recent explosions in the availability of not only contemporary data/information, but also historical imagery (a post about the recently-expanded/revamped Library of Congress Digital Collections shall be forthcoming; honestly, I was perusing their archives yesterday, and I am astounded by how much it had grown since the last time I looked at it, which was only a few weeks ago. Nice work, gubmint!).

That said, there are some really interesting possibilities for the study of contemporary history (I know, kind of an odd phrase) being opened up by tools like Google Insights. I suppose there are serious concerns about bias inherent in using such methods to make assumptions about cultural trends (your results are defined by those who use Google, for starters) but it still some nice fodder for provoking thought.

David McCandless over at informationisbeautiful.net was doing some investigations on this front, showing the possibility to make evident at least a sliver of the zeitgeist that would otherwise pass mostly unnoticed just below the surface of social discourse:

Every April and November the issue flares up. Why?

April 20th is the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Though dimishing, the echoes of that event still reverberate through the group mind.

Not sure about the November peak? Maybe because Christmas video games are announced?

The Relative Trustworthiness of Beards

Your guide to creeps. As one unable to grow a beard, I tend not to trust anyone with facial hair. But that's just because I am jealous of them. If I could, I would grow the "unkempt beard" (aka "homeless beard"), putting me somewhere between "unsavory" and "threatening" on the beardometer. And that would be the impression I wanted to convey. The more I think about it, the harder it is to project "unsavory" without facial hair. My brother tends to rock the "Colonel Sanders", thus rendering him neutral. My favorite though is the pencil-thin chinstrap. Gross.
designed by Matt McInerney (aka pixelspread.com), via informationisbeautiful.

If the CME don't get you, the volcanoes will

Photo via The Reykjavik Grapevine

People in the far northern reaches of the earth, look out! Not only must you brace for a big solar storm, but now you have have plumes of hot volcanic ash to worry about. From the NY Times:

The ash is coming from an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, located near a glacier of the same name (which, for those not fluent in Icelandic, is pronounced, AYA-feeyapla-yurkul) in southern Iceland, which began erupting last month for the first time in nearly 200 years.

The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites has some great satellite imagery of the cloud of ash drifting east and disrupting air travel in northern Europe:

Coronal Mass Ejection!

So yesterday the sun did this:
From SpaceWeather:

The eruption hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME, movie) into space. The expanding cloud could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field around April 15th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of polar geomagnetic activity when the CME arrives.

Forecast: Rain

He's a little awkward at first, trying to be polite and uttering platitudes about the tournament ("terrific excitement") and missing easy shots; but once he starts talking a little smack, then he takes over and starts draining deep threes: "Thwap!"

He has an unorthodox technique to say the least, but his release is nice. I think that youtube commenter rotensnatchmuffdiver put it best:

obama gots a nice ass jump shot

Star Wars Uncut

Who would've thought that there was all kinds of stuff about Star Wars on the internet? There are even whole websites devoted entirely to Star Wars stuff!

Anyway, the Star Wars Uncut project is nearing completion. Here is a piece of the finished product: the scene in which Obi Wan is killed, Luke, Han, etc., escape from the Death Star, and then Luke and Han shoot some tie fighters! Awesome:

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

They say the entire movie will be shown at the CPH:PIX Festival April 19 in Copenhagen, and its true.

Will Admiral Ackbar lead the Rebels?

Since Colonel Reb was "discontinued from official participation in athletic events by the school" in 2003, Ole Miss has been mascot-less. An internet campaign sprouted in an attempt to draft Admiral Ackbar (highest ranking officer in the Rebel Alliance) as a candidate for the Colonel's replacement. Apparently, it was all a big joke, sorta:

However the students that began the campaign insist that Admiral Ackbar is not their ideal choice for the school's mascot. Instead they intend the character as "the face of a push to start a fresh mascot search at Ole Miss." However, the student-led committee that will start the process of choosing a new mascot has not yet formed.

I cant imagine why anyone would think that was a very funny joke. On a related note, I suspect that race may have played a factor in the Colonel's retirement: apparently, his character may have been based on a black man.